Moscow “attacks” Zelensky to defend Berlusconi. It is not the first time in recent months that this has happened: there have been several declarations, even in heated tones, among the leaders or their spokespersons. Today to speak is Maria Zakharova, Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman: “In yet another attack by helpless rage, the bunker inhabitant lashed out at Berlusconi, because he reminded the Kiev regime of Donbass”. The comment on Telegram refers to the Ukrainian president’s criticism of the Forza Italia leader. Zelensky, commenting on Berlusconi’s remarks (“Civilians killed for his obstinacy in Donbass”), had replied that the former Italian prime minister probably had never had his house bombed.
“Leaders have the right to think, the real problem is the approach of the Italian company which has given that leader a mandate. I believe that Berlusconi’s house has never been bombed, tanks have never arrived in his garden, no one has killed his relatives, he has never had to pack his suitcase at three in the morning to escape. And all this thanks to the brotherly love of Russia… I wish peace to all Italian families, even to those who don’t support us, but ours is a great tragedy that must be understood. I want them to come here to see with their own eyes the trail of blood they have left” the words of the Ukrainian president. A jab addressed to the former Knight on the day of the visit of Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni who reassured Kiev.
Zakharova then takes up what Berlusconi said, after Zelensky’s remarks, on the Allied bombing of Milan when he was a child and then concludes: “Zelensky trivially compared his own regime to the fascist one and the Russian special military operation to the actions of the Allies in World War II. The truth escaped him.”
Again ten days ago, on February 12, the day on which the ruling Ruby, Berlusconi did not hide that, as Prime Minister, he would not have met Zelensky (as Meloni did) and that in any case “it was enough for him to stop attacking the two autonomous republics of Donbass and the conflict would not have happened”. A thesis already revealed to his parliamentarians – and disseminated in some “stolen” audio files shortly before the birth of the Meloni government, in October – to argue that Putin’s Russia “didn’t want war” but Ukraine “tripled its attacks in Donbass”. And so on until he admitted that he had “rekindled relations a bit with his friend-tsar, author of a very sweet letter sent to Berlusconi on his last birthday, together with twenty bottles of vodka. Just the vodka had triggered eight days later a comment by Zelensky’s adviser, Mykhailo Podolyak, he tweeted: ““Any crisis paves the way for true leaders. While Mr. Berlusconi is under the influence of Russian vodka in the company of ‘five friends of Putin’ in Europe, Giorgia Meloni demonstrates what are the true principles and understanding of global challenges. Everyone chooses their own path.”